Shosan Victoria Austin

Shosan Victoria Austin began practicing Zen in 1971 and trained in the U.S., India, and Japan. She was entrusted as a Dharma heir in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in 1999, became an international Soto Zen priest in 2005, and has served as a Dharma teacher at San Francisco Zen Center since 1999. Her previous leadership roles there include Work Leader, Tenzo, Tanto, and President. In 2022, she co-led the training and participation of the Ryoban ceremonial assembly for the Zenshuji 100th Anniversary Jukai-e in Los Angeles, a five-day retreat where more than 100 people received precept teachings and vows.

Alongside her long study and daily teaching of the yogic dimensions of meditation in workplaces, institutions, and homes, she is also an Iyengar yoga teacher (1988), teacher educator (2003), assessor of new yoga teachers (2005), and Right Use of Power facilitator (2019). Her teaching highlights inclusion, accessibility, trauma sensitivity, and appropriate challenge, rooted in an awareness of liberation as both possible and present.